Author Nicholas Shaxson delivers a talk all about the dangerous fallacy of competing tax rates: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/saving-havens-offshore-onshore-or-mid-shore-financial-centres

Nicholas Shaxson, author of Treasure islands, ventures into the lions' den to deliver his lecture on why a 'competitive tax rate' is a term of economic illiteracy. Mr Shaxson shows how this term has been misused and perverted to apply the microeconomic tenets to the macroeconomic scale even as it ignores fundamentals of tax as part of a nation's economy. A challenging lecture that highlights many important issues in finance today.

With three nearby Crown Dependencies and six overseas territories promoting themselves as 'international financial centres', the UK seems to value offshore centres. Yet during current financial crises these havens are easy scapegoats. At the 2011 G20 Summit in Cannes, President Nicolas Sarkozy stated, "We don't want any more tax havens. Our message is clear, countries that remain tax havens … will be shunned by the international community". But do these centres add value? And what of onshore havens such as Delaware, Monaco, Luxembourg ... London? This symposium will explore the good, the bad and the ugly - savings, crimes and tax. We will look at how offshore centres do add value, their dangers and how things might evolve to something, perhaps "mid-shore".

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/saving-havens-offshore-onshore-or-mid-shore-financial-centres

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,500 lectures free to access or download from the website.
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